


Back To You

by Hooda



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Cold Weather, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hoth, Hyperventilating, POV Cassian Andor, POV Jyn Erso, The Force Ships It, Why isn't there a tag for "hyperventilating", hand holding, title may change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 19:30:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11386872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hooda/pseuds/Hooda
Summary: That is was terrifying that someone would come home to her, and it left her feeling torn between apprehension and a glee she never felt before when he greeted her. It was terrifying to admit that there was someone who held her name so warmly on their tongue, let it roll off so easily and make it sound so loved after a lifetime of cold and emptiness.It terrified Jyn, beyond anything she ever knew in her life._____Jyn has a panic attack, but Cassian makes sure she is okay, no matter how exhausted he is or late for a debrief he gets. #rebelcaptain





	Back To You

**Author's Note:**

> No, this isn't perfect.
> 
> Yes, it was written in the middle of night.
> 
> No, I didn't edit it thoroughly.
> 
> Yes, I will cry when "Rogue One" comes out on Netflix in three weeks.
> 
> No, this isn't the last thing I'll be posting.

She starts hyperventilating when he sees her across the floor of the hangar. It was an immediate reaction; unbidden in the middle of an update from a droid on the state of the ship Bodhi wrecked throughout a dog-fight with a TIE-fighter a week prior.

 

_“You could have been killed!” she’d nearly screamed at him when he landed, breathless and shoulder bruised from hitting the cockpit hatch in a sharp turn._

_He half staggered down the ladder, a mix of relief and anxiety spilling from muscles and into the air. A mechanic nearby practically screeched in horror at the hole from a clean shot, right through the metal and narrowly taking the stabilizer cables with it._

_His hair fell into his eyes - fallen out of its bun - when he shoes from her punch._

 

Hoth was a terrible choice for a new home base. 

Its surface, unlike the plentiful jungle of Yavin 4, is a barren ice sheet incapable of supporting the briefest of lifeforms. Temperatures were so low compared to anything Jyn has had to endure. If not careful, cold air could scorch the back of one’s throat dry.

Despite the overwhelming list of discordances, Jyn kept her mouth shut and took what safety from the Empire she could get her hands on.

She sees Cassian trudging through the hangar doors from the outer landing grounds and suddenly it feels like her ribcage is a space too compact for her lungs to handle.

The droid whizzes frustratingly, probably at her sudden turn of heels mid-conversation for the halls leading further into the innards of base, hand pressed over her mouth to keep her erratic breaths from crystalizing in the air.

No one gives her a second glance as she presses into a fast paced walk.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jyn thinks she saw Cassian’s face drop.

Her heartbeat pounds in her ears.

Her mind buzzes with a cacophony of thoughts.

_Welcome home._

Little stings of buried memories of betrayal flick through the gaping barrier in the alleys of her mind. A dark abyss, it threatens to swallow Jyn whole.

_Welcome home._

Everything snaps back too quickly. Air sucks into her mouth, hidden, from beneath a gloved hand as she quiveringly makes a beeline for a dorm.

They were erratic, uncontrollable, scathing yips.

Her stomach twisted nauseously.

Not her own rooms - not with her comrades retiring from training and swinging up onto their bunks in a room too small to fit the six of them.

Jyn punches in the code to Cassian’s private room before her mind has a half a sense to catch up.

(That’s what scares her most: the thoughtless loss of control.)

The room was cold, as expected, and dark. She doesn't bother even slapping a hand around against the roughly hewn walls for the makeshift light switch. The metal doors hisses shut behind her, almost taking some of loose hairs that waver from her head, closing Jyn in near complete darkness.

She doesn't even get her hands out in front of her to search for anything in the way before she senselessly collapses onto the cold, hard floor.

_Welcome home._

The words echo hauntingly in her mind, a mantra of a promise yet to be proven true with time. They balm over her senses as she curls tight into a ball, elbows hugging her knees to her chest and head bowed, attempting to calm something so ethereally lost in her that threatens to break her apart.

The ground was flat and icy under her, cold slowly sneaking into her body. It did not help her bout of shivering or her hurried breaths. She couldn't breathe; the air was too stifling or not enough, she couldn't decide.

If there were any light in the room, she's certain she’d be seeing dark spots on the edges of her vision.

She could've been there for five minutes or an hour, Jyn couldn't tell. Her heart was beating a million times a minute, her chest tightening beyond anything she had ever felt before.

Trapped, she equates the feeling to, as she huddles tighter into herself to stop the shaking. Trapped in her own body.

Someone was pounding at the door.

Or it could have been her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

“Jyn, open up,” Cassian’s voice pleaded. “Please.”

He sounded tired, worn from a mission that demanded so much in so little a time frame.

His rail against the door stops and she thinks she hears him rest his palm against the door, powerless, unable to reach her.

“Jyn - please open the door,” he begs.

Her hand inched towards the lock. Her fingers shivered traitorously as she pushed the override lock on her side, the light blinking green three times before the door hissed open.

With the light of the halls illuminating him from behind, Cassian darts in the second the door lets him. He hears her before he sees her; darting yips of scratchy inhalations in the corner of the room.

He was not gentle or careful prying her hands from their grip on her knees. His hands were warm where they pressed against hers, briefly.

“Jyn, what happened?” he asks, his voice hoarse and accented to her muffled ears. It was like she was drowning, drifting through the moment with Cassian half crouched and half kneeling in front of her, trying to decipher her.

“I don’t-,” she tries, throat squeezed too tight but to gulp desperately for air. “Cassian, I can’t-.” Her hands fly to her chest, her throat, desperately trying to show him. It was too dark to see anything.

A voice in her head is begging her to calm down. But her body has an agenda of its own as it shivers and shivers and yips helplessly for oxygen.

Keeping one hand pressed to Jyn’s knee, Cassian slapped his hand around above her head for the light switch.

The sudden brightness pierces the space around them, illuminating for Cassian to see the distress written across Jyn’s face. His stomach lurches at the sight of her sweating brow, her chest rapidly rising and falling, every muscle in her body tightening in response to the bouts of shivering.

Her eyes were unfocused, focusing on no spot in particular as they roamed from his bag carelessly strewn on the ground to the desk in the diagonal corner of the room. Cassian dropped into her singular field of vision.

“Jyn,” he started, careful, quiet. “Look at me.”

One of his hands seek out hers. His thumb singles out the vein on the soft side of her wrist. Her pulse was maddening.

“Easy, Jyn; I’m right here. I’m here, okay?”

His second hand precariously moves towards her shoulder, testing the boundaries she works so hard to build in moments of such debilitating weakness. Her eyes snap to his, green and piercing and vibrant.

“Cassian,” her voice was rushed and panicked, like she was afraid of losing the air to breathe out words. “I feel like shit.” She was shaking.

His hand on her shoulder daringly cupped her neck. He fights the urge to rub his thumb tenderly against her cheek.

Softer than he ever thought possible, Cassian repeated: “I’ve got you.”

The words undo her more than Cassian will ever realize. Her muscles slowly began to unclench in an attempt to push away the shivering. They slowly abate, leaving Jyn to feel like she had just slept a night on a wooden board.

It leaves her with a slow ache that helps push the constriction on her chest away. Her breaths transition from yips to shallow gulps; from gulps to slightly shuddering breaths, like the little hiccups in her breathing she got after crying as a small child.

She closes her eyes and takes in the largest breath possible.

Her hand quivered almost microscopically when she pulled it out of Cassian’s grip. She exhales deeply and tips her head back until it touches the cool wall behind her.

Her neck feels cool when Cassian’s palm slips away and his arm drops back down to his side.

“Thank you.”

The admittance was tiny, words so barely audible Cassian almost misses them in the din of his parka’s shuffling fabric. He sighs breathily as he comes to sit at Jyn’s side, their arms brushing briefly and backs parallel as they lean back against the wall together. Her legs groan as she stretches them out besides Cassian’s on the floor.

The shaky calm barely lasts a moment.

“What happened?”

Silence was the only answer.

Then: “I panicked. I saw you coming in from the landing grounds and I couldn't handle what came over me and I panicked.”

An action that somewhat eluded Jyn was holding someone’s hand. There was nothing significantly exemplary the few times she watched her mother’s hand reach across the table during meal times for her father’s fingers.

But Cassian’s hand was tentative as he reached for her own in the tiny annex of space between them. She prefers to focus on the softness of the skin between his fingers as they gently slide between hers, the carefulness as his thumb traces little crescent shapes into her palm.

It was an indescribable comfort to have someone _here,_ permanent in the moment and solid at her side. So long in her life Jyn was accustomed to the solidarity that came with isolating oneself from the others around them.

Solidarity and self reliance guaranteed no one could leave her. Smaller chances for someone else to hurt her. Or eventually fail to return.

Cassian doesn't press into her single lined explanation. Instead, he breathes out a sigh of relief and simply holds her hand, squeezing it momentarily.

Precariously, Jyn leans her temple against his shoulder. She doesn't tell him, but the fur of his parka was glistening with melting snow from the outdoor landing grounds. It covers his hair, too.

Her eyes settle somewhere just beyond their extended legs. His boots were caked in red dust and mud. They were filthy and the laces were in need of a thorough cleaning, they were so caked over.

“I’m a screwed up person.”

The words come out slowly, like she has to taste their truth on her tongue before spitting them out into the open, freezing air that condenses her breaths.

For a moment, it feels stupidly good to feel the slight rise and falls of Cassian’s shoulders against her face as he chuckles in mirthless agreement.

“Aren’t we all?”

 

+

 

Echo Base was a flurry of activity each evening. There were the majority of assignments pooling back in from days out. Many were Intelligence officers, sent off world to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of the Empire’s next strategic move after the destruction of the Death Star.

For Cassian, who faced the first quadruple demotion the Alliance had ever administered on an officer in its history, it meant confinement to whatever ship he was assigned to assist.

He hated the long periods of time sitting alone in the co-pilot’s seat, waiting for information to be relayed from the captain manning the mission.

Other times, it just meant he was a hired hand. But he would load cargo, or tap notes into a data pad into the late hours long after Jyn fell asleep, especially if it meant he had any opportunity of building a reputation with Command again.

More than anything, Cassian wanted to help the Alliance with the vigor he showed before Scarif. He wanted to aid the rebellion in any way he could, but he was severely limited as “Private” Andor, rather than “Captain.”

(Doesn’t stop Jyn or Dameron from calling him by his former rank.)

The mission report takes longer than expected. Draven is watching him closely throughout, crinkles at the corner of his mouth turning down in slight disgust at the mention of a Senator’s refusal to help them with a supply of medical equipment.

Cassian sits quietly as Captain Mauro takes over the rest of the debrief, keeping his eyes on the holo-projections of files appearing over the center console, files that Mauro managed to snag off an Imperial weapons depot officer he crossed paths with one drunken night in a cantina.

Exhaustion pulls at the corner of his mind. Nights spent restlessly trying to adjust a lumpy jacket into submission as a pillow come to mind.

Mauro’s words blend together senselessly, Cassian’s input no longer needed until they are excused for the evening.

He thinks about Jyn leaning on his shoulder, her stray hairs sticking to the damp lining of his furred parka hood, how her breathing hiccuped back to normal as he pulled himself to his feet and apologized for having to leave her alone until later.

 

_“I’m fine,” she’d huffed, wiping the bangs from her brow and eyes not meeting his as he reached to open the door. Cassian shot her a look, half apprehensive and half daring to skip a mandatory debriefing if it meant staying with her for a little bit longer._

_“Jyn, you just had what I am certain was a panic attack-,”_

_“I’m fine_ now, _” Jyn reiterates, almost forcefully, as she pushes the lock for the door to open. The hall air stings her skin just a little colder than Cassian’s room._

_“You’re know you're welcome to stay here.”_

_For the privacy, he doesn't say, because she’ll scowl and deny it if he does. Privacy was something Jyn never quite had enough of in her life. Coddling was on that list, along with hand holding and someone to lean on when her mind betrayed her inconveniently from time to time._

_“I have training.”_

_An excuse, really, when the day was coming to a close and everyone was taking time to eat or crash for a couple hours. The only people in the training rooms were the late night arrivals trying to push off time zone differences for a couple hours or insomniacs who didn't mind pushing their bodies into an exhaustive override, hoping the adrenaline was enough to keep the restlessness at bay._

_“You_ always _have training.”_

_“We’ll meet later. Ok? After the debriefing finishes.”_

_He settled with a quiet “okay” and giving her hand one last squeeze before parting ways; him to Command and her the opposite direction. When he glanced back at her retreating form, he wouldn't even know she had succumbed to a moment of suffocating weakness had he not been there to witness it._

 

He eventually finds her later, though not in the small unofficial cantina Han runs out of his ship or trading blaster pieces with Mutt in the training rooms. Dameron points him in the direction of the front hangars closest to the doors leading out to the bitter snow landscape outside.

Black soot marked her face when she comes up for air from underneath the body of Rook’s battered ship, one hand busy with a soiled rag the color of a Hutt’s underbelly and a hydro-spanner balancing in the other.

“I couldn't get my hands to stop trembling.”

“So fine-tuning Rook’s ship was the answer to that?”

Cassian stumbles away, snickering, when Jyn towel whips his arm.

“I had to do _something_. I wanted to spar, but Jerra and the others decided to get a nightcap.” The grin on his face immediately melts away.

A few skeleton crews were left in the hangars that evening. Some were working arduously on ships in better or similar conditions to the one Bodhi flew in with last week. They had looked the other way when Jyn snuck into view, hands pressed tightly into her pockets and shoulders tense, looking for a project to keep her mind off reality for a while.

She likes the numbness that comes with a repetitive job, such as clipping wires into place or running an old rag over the body of a ship until the bright colors of its squadron shone again.

(Rogue Squadron was a sleek black and menacing; her personal favorite.)

Cassian doesn't complain about the smell of oil and discharge permeating about Jyn when he slings an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side as they calmly walk back to his room.

She blinks sleepily as he punches in the number to his rooms, her hand briefly touching his as she slips first into his room.

Cassian was never a man of many words, especially when it came to promoting what he wanted to say if he was concerned in particular about someone. He usually needed a drink in his system to lighten him up or a prod of encouragement from K2, but there was no one but himself now to stop Jyn.

His hand darts out, taking her by the elbow and pulling her back around, just as the warm niche between the back of her neck to pull her closer.

He kisses her without a second thought, as most of their reunions begin.

Nothing is perfect about the way they kiss any time; not the way her face is angled or the way their noses press uncomfortably against the other. Of course, he needed to adjust himself so Jyn did not have to reach so high up when she slips her arms around his neck to pull him closer into her.

But there was the softness in his silent intention, the warmth in each other’s closeness, the slight hitch in her breath when he pulls away suddenly.

He leans back down to peck her lips.

Then twice again, tender and quick.

“What was _that_ for?” Jyn asked, cheeks slightly flushed and the corners of her mouth trying so obviously hard not to grin.

“Nothing.”

Jyn's eyebrows shoot up so far they nearly miss her hairline.

“ _Nothing?”_

Cassian slipped out from her grip and pushes into the room, already half shrugging out of his parka as Jyn follows in and locks the door. Her boots thumped as they hit their customary spot besides his sodden ones.

“I want to know,” she eventually mentions, albeit curiously, as she lifts his covers up enough to scoot it. Cassian stills his typing on data pad when she curls into his side, warm and solid, close enough she could read the words off his report herself. It was distracting.

He lets the data pad go dark, lays it on his chest, and slips an arm under Jyn’s head so she can breathe into the space between his collarbone and neck.

“You were so panicked earlier, I just wanted to show you that **_I am with you._** ” He doesn't tell her directly. Can’t, because if he turned his head his chin would bump into her forehead.

So instead he settles for letting his extended arm curl around her back so his hand can rub into the space that Cassian finds makes her relaxed.

“All the way; I know.”

“All the way,” Cassian repeats quietly.

And in the quiet darkness that night when Cassian falls fast asleep, data pad forgotten atop his chest and head tilted into hers while his arm kept her close, Jyn lets herself feel the panic from before.

That is was terrifying that someone would _come home to her_ , and it left her feeling torn between apprehension and a glee she never felt before when he greeted her. It was terrifying to admit that there was someone who held her name so warmly on their tongue, let it roll off so easily and make it sound so _loved_ after a lifetime of cold and emptiness.

It terrified Jyn, beyond anything she ever knew in her life.

But she felt Cassian readjust himself unconsciously in his sleep until the hand that wasn't curling her close was inches from the hers that was lying just over his heart, protectively.

She let herself feel just a little terrified as she twined their fingers together over his chest, the softness of the skin between his fingers warming her own freezing hands, and she slowly began to understand what her parents felt in those rare moments at dinner so many years before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! I'm looking for some writing ideas for #rebelcaptain, so if you feel like sharing, just let me know below!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GN0jxr7IPY
> 
> ^^^ I didn't make that amazing kiss up; this amazing show did.


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